A metal hydride air conditioner is predominantly used in vehicles due to its energy efficient operation. Conventionally, a metal hydride air conditioner includes a high temperature (HT) reactor and a low temperature (LT) reactor. Hydrogen transfer takes place between the HT reactor and the LT reactor. A particular working cycle of each of the HT and the LT reactor includes two half cycles. The initiation of a new half cycle requires changing the flow from the hot/cold fluid to the fluid at ambient temperature or vice versa. For example, the HT reactor receives the hot fluid in the first half cycle and the fluid at ambient temperature in the second half cycle. Similarly, the LT reactor receives the fluid at ambient temperature in the first half cycle, and the cold fluid in the second half cycle. Typically, exhaust gas from the engine of the vehicle is used as the hot fluid. In conventional metal hydride air conditioners, changing the flow, i.e. from hot/cold fluid to the fluid at ambient temperature or vice versa, is purely dependent on fixed pre-set time. However, quantity and temperature of the hot fluid, i.e., exhaust gas, keeps on varying due to many parameters such as road conditions, inclination of the road, and vehicle speed. If the flow and the temperature of exhaust gas to be supplied are higher, the first half cycle of HT reactor may complete before the fixed half cycle time. However, switching of flow in the conventional metal hydride air conditioners is not dependent on the flow and quantity of the exhaust gas. In such cases, higher flow and the temperature of exhaust gas may result in lower coefficient of performance as next half cycle is not initiated in the metal hydride air conditioner.
Therefore, there is felt a need of a control system for a metal hydride air conditioner, that alleviates the abovementioned drawbacks of conventional metal hydride air conditioners and takes into account the fixed cycle time as well as the flow and quantity of exhaust gas for switching the flow.